My thanks to Eduard for providing this kit and my sincere apology for the length of time it took to complete the review. My excuse – I was savoring the building of both aircraft.
The newest in Osprey’s Aircraft of the Aces series is authored by Yasuho Izawa, an ophthalmic optician in Tokyo. His past literary works include co-authoring Japanese Army Air Force Fighter Units and their Aces 1931-45 (with Ikuhiko Hata), Japanese Naval Air Force Fighter Units and their Aces 1932-45(with Ikuhiko Hata), Japanese Naval Aces and Fighter Units in World War II (with Ikuhiko Hata), and Bloody Shambles Volumes 1 and 2 (with Christopher Shores and Brian Cull). Tony Holmes has been the Osprey Aviation Editor since 1989 and is responsible for devising the Aircraft of the Aces, Combat Aircraft, Elite Units, and Duel series of books for Osprey. In his 26 year career, Tony Holmes has authored, or co-authored, more than thirty aviation books. Illustrator Jim Laurier, a native of New England, provides the color profiles. Jim has been drawing since he could hold a pencil and throughout his life he has worked in many mediums creating artwork on a variety of subjects.
Osprey Publications have given us another excellent book for the military historian or for the model builder wanting a good reference book to include in his library. This publication was written by Bruce Oliver, PhD, a lecturer in International Relations at the University of California Berkeley who has several publications to his name.
The Valentine, Infantry Mk III was a light duty tank built and used by the British in WW II. The book is divided into 8 sections.
The introduction section consisting of 2 paragraphs, gives a short synopsis of the Valentine platform and the countries it was exported to during WWII along with the percentage data of the platform usage.
Scale Aircraft Conversions has released a nice set of replacement landing gear for the Trumpeter 1/48 Sukhoi Su-11 Fishpot. The seven parts supplied include the nose gear, main gear, and gear retraction arms. A side by side evaluation of all the SAC parts shows the similarity with the kit parts. There are no supplied instructions; you simply swap out the kit provided plastic parts with the new white metal items. The SAC landing gear may need to be slightly adjusted to be straight (a benefit of using metal is that you can bend it slightly). Smooth jaw needle nose pliers work wonderfully.
Since April of 2013 when Kodakawa games released their free browser game Kantai Collection (aka Kancolle), featuring cute anime girls each of which represent ships from the Second World War IJN, there has been an increased interest in ship modeling in Japan. Tamiya, Hasegawa and Aoshima, have long worked in harmony releasing a sizable number of 1/700 warships represented by the waterline series of kits. These three companies as well as Fujimi are capitalizing on the popularity of the game and anime series by re-releasing many of these kits, as well as creating new kits, with extra decals of the girls as well as game specific box art.
Admittedly, because of the game as well as the anime series, I too have become a bit more interested in ship modeling. When I saw the Model Art issue covering up for grabs I knew that I wanted to give it a good look. Based on other Model Art magazine reviews and the few that I already own it I knew I would not be disappointed.
If you needed to tow a really big rig – you would need a really big wrecker! This replica kit does the real thing justice and it’s got pretty good quality for an older mold.
The English Electric Lightning was designed and developed during the 1950s at the height of the Cold War era. The Lightning was the only all-British Mach 2 supersonic fighter aircraft, and it was the RAF's primary interceptor for more than two decades. The F1 version of the Lightning entered service in 1959, with the improved F1A in 1961.
The Lightning’s uniquely stacked powerful engines provided the Lightning an incredible rate of climb, superb service ceiling, and top speed placing it well ahead of rival contemporaries. It was used by the Royal Air Force and the Royal Saudi Air Force, then finally retired in the late 1980s.
Scale Aircraft Conversions has released a nice set of replacement landing gear for the Pilot Replicas 1/48 Saab J 29F Tunnan. The nice part about Ross McMillan’s set is that it will fit any J 29 Tunnan from Pilot Replicas, and they have designed their kit to be able to issue all versions of the Saab Tunnan. The eight parts supplied include the nose gear strut, nose gear mud guard, nose gear torque arms, main gear stuts, and main gear retraction arms. A side by side evaluation of all the SAC parts shows the similarity with the kit parts. There are no supplied instructions; you simply swap out the kit provided plastic parts with the new white metal items. The SAC landing gear may need to be slightly adjusted to be straight (a benefit of using metal is that you can bend it slightly). Smooth jaw needle nose pliers work wonderfully.
Authored by Robert Peczkowski, with color profiles by Zbigniew Kolacha, this book, is a comprehensive text and photographic/image guide to the Republic P-47B-D.
The book thoroughly covers the “B”, “C”, and “D” versions of this famous World War II aircraft. This story is told in excellent text, accompanied by period B&W photographs, excellent color images of surviving airframes, extracts from official manuals, and a superb collection of color profiles by Zbigniew Kolacha.
Of particular interest to the hobbyist is the excellent color artwork which depicts many of the camouflage schemes and markings found on the P-47.
Of particular interest in the list of chapters are those which feature “Detail Photos” of the fuselage, wing, engine, canopy, cockpit, tail, undercarriage, guns, and stores. The modeler will find these images rich in detail.
Masking sets started to show up 10-15 years ago and the first sets were cut vinyl, which worked well on certain things but had difficulty bending around corners and staying in place. Eduard solved this problem a while back by going to low tack yellow tape that is sticky enough to fit into corners and stay put while painting is going on but still leaves no residue. There are precut and usually fit a specific kit.
This set fits HobbyBoss 1/48 A-6E TRAM kit and allows masking of several different parts. First, solid masks are included for the two large front windows. The small sides to the front and the main canopy have parts that provide a sharp out frame. The instructions say to mask with liquid masking and this works but I have also used Tamiya tape and that works also.
